Episode 6: Shadows and Reflections
"The scariest enemy isn't the one in front of you. It's the one inside your mirror." — Backstabber's Diary, Page 6
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Rhea didn't sleep that night. Not really. Her eyelids flickered over and over, but her mind ran in spirals, circling the same question: Who is inside my diary?
The shadows in her room grew longer than usual, as if they knew her fear and wanted to stretch it, drag it across the walls. Every tick of her old wall clock was louder, sharper, like a heartbeat too close to her own.
She opened her notebook. Not the real one. The fake one. She expected pages, lines, handwriting—but what she found was new.
A reflection.
A doodle. A mirror-image of her last entry. But instead of her neat cursive, the letters were jagged, twisted. Underlined three times:
> "You think you're the hunter. But hunters bleed first."
Her hands froze. Cold. She swallowed, tasting iron in her mouth.
She flipped the page. Another message:
> "Do you even know your own face?"
Rhea pulled the notebook closer, scanning each word as if the letters themselves were hiding a trap. They were not hers. But they weren't random. They knew her.
The room felt smaller. Shadows thickened. Her reflection in the window stared at her—just herself, yet wrong. Her eyes were sharper, calculating, almost cruel.
> "Move. Or be moved," whispered a voice behind her ear.
She whipped around. Nothing. Just the faint creak of the floorboards.
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The next morning, Velmont's halls felt heavier. The lights flickered when she passed. Lockers slammed on their own. Students moved like ghosts, avoiding her gaze.
Caleb met her at their usual spot near the library entrance. His smile was tight, cautious. He handed her another folded note without speaking.
> "It's spreading. Faster than we thought."
"What is?" she asked.
He shrugged. "The knowledge. The diary… or them. Or both."
Rhea's stomach knotted. She understood then that this wasn't about exposing Dean Halberg. Not really. It was about control. Watching her, shaping her, testing her reactions. And whoever was behind it… was laughing.
She flipped the note. A tiny chessboard drawn in the corner. One pawn circled.
She swallowed hard. "It's a game," she said quietly.
Caleb nodded. "And we're on the board now."
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By afternoon, paranoia had become a second skin. Every glance in the corridor. Every shadow under a desk. Every whisper. Someone was following her.
She ducked into the archives wing. Dust motes hung like stars in the dim sunlight. Shelves of old Velmont yearbooks and worn trophies surrounded her. She could hear her own breathing, steady but too loud.
The fake diary was in her backpack. She pulled it out. The pages were blank, except… a new message scrawled across the bottom:
> "Check the mirror."
Her heart slammed. She looked around. A tall, narrow mirror stood by the back wall. She approached it slowly, expecting only her reflection.
But it wasn't just her.
Another Rhea stood behind her reflection in the glass. Same hair. Same jacket. Same wide, calculating eyes. But its smile was sharper, crueler. It raised a hand, pointing at her.
> "Pawn."
Rhea staggered back. Her hands shook. The reflection moved independently. Lips moving, whispering words she didn't say.
She blinked. And the reflection vanished.
The chill didn't.
---
The next week felt like an extended experiment.
Rhea's classmates treated her as invisible, yet their eyes followed her every move. Teachers nodded too politely. Conversations halted when she entered. Even Caleb acted… cautious. Guarded. He handed her notes instead of speaking.
One day, she found a paperclip on her desk, bent at an impossible angle. She remembered the first time. Same as before. Subtle. Calculated. A message:
> "I know you noticed."
Rhea's stomach turned. Every instinct screamed at her: run, hide, rewrite, erase. But she didn't. She wrote. In the real diary this time:
> "I don't know who I trust anymore. If the diary can copy my thoughts, what else can it take? What else can it break?"
A pause. Then she drew a small chessboard. One pawn. Two circles around it.
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The next night, Rhea stayed in the archives again. She had to find patterns, connections, weaknesses. Every noise made her jump. Every flicker of light seemed to be a signal.
She opened the fake diary again. A message glowed faintly under the paper—almost imperceptible, as if etched into the fibers themselves:
> "Look behind you."
Her head snapped. Nothing.
The mirror at the far corner caught her eye. The reflection shimmered. She approached, careful. And then she saw it:
Another Rhea. Watching. Smiling.
And then the diary trembled in her hands. Pages flipping on their own. Words forming, twisting, as if the notebook itself were alive.
> "The first move is never the last. Prepare for the second."
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She realized then the truth. The enemy wasn't Velmont. It wasn't Dean Halberg. It wasn't even Aidan.
It was the reflection of herself.
And someone was moving that reflection.
Someone inside her mind, reading her before she even wrote it. Anticipating, plotting, always one step ahead.
The diary hadn't just copied her thoughts. It had evolved. Learned. And now… it was teaching her how fragile she was.
She felt the weight of it. Every decision, every word, every breath was monitored, recorded, manipulated.
The pawn wasn't just a piece. It was a symbol. A warning.
She drew another pawn beside the last one. Three circles this time.
> "I accept," she whispered.
This wasn't a diary anymore. It was a battlefield. And she had just stepped onto it.
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Author's Note 🖤 – Mirrors That Move
In this episode, the paranoia escalates. Rhea isn't just being watched. She's being studied. Anticipated. Outwitted.
The mirror motifs connect to the last episode: just as a reflection can fight you in the labyrinth, the diary can "fight" her in real life. Every subtle change—a paperclip bent, a doodle added, a note left—echoes the psychological horror of Chapter 6's Glass Labyrinth from The Final Cut.
The pawn symbolizes her vulnerability, her place on the board, and the slow realization that trust is now a dangerous commodity. Caleb's presence is comforting but uncertain; he may still be an ally, but every ally is now suspect.
This episode is about control, reflection, and manipulation. It's the first time Rhea truly understands that her mind is no longer her own, and the enemy inside the mirror may know her better than she knows herself.
The chessboard is set. Moves are being made. And Rhea? She's just the first player to realize she's in a game she can't yet see the rules for.
Next Episode: "The Mask in the Mirror" — Rhea confronts the eyes behind the glass and tests if the reflection is friend or foe.
Stay sharp. Stay unseen. And never, ever trust what mirrors tell you.
— Your backstabber in the shadows, 🐼 Aarya Patil
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